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suraj.sun sends this snippet from Reuters:
"A girl can be sued over accusations she ran over an elderly woman with her training bicycle when she was 4 years old, a New York Supreme Court justice has ruled. The ruling by King's County Supreme Court Justice Paul Wooten stems from an incident in April 2009 when Juliet Breitman and Jacob Kohn, both aged four, struck an 87-year-old pedestrian, Claire Menagh, with their training bikes. Menagh underwent surgery for a fractured hip and died three months later. In a ruling made public late Thursday, the judge dismissed arguments by Breitman's lawyer that the case should be dismissed because of her young age. He ruled that she is old enough to be sued and the case can proceed."

Okay, a pair of four year olds on their bikes. Accidentally hit an old lady.

And they're going to sue the four year olds?

Okay guys. It really IS time to kill all the lawyers.

*Grabs a gun*

Would you like to explain exactly what problem you see in this? The accident caused serious injury, which means the family of the old lady probably is now facing a large medical bill. Do you think they should have to pay that, rather than having the parents of the kids pay it?

Normally insurance works like that. If I get injured in an accident, that is why I have medical insurance. They pay for fixing me up. Doesn't matter if I caused it or if someone else did, they cover my bills. That's the point.

Now the only cases where this differs is in cases of negligence or if something was deliberate. If someone was negligent in their actions then they can be accountable for the harm they caused.

People need to accept that, in life, shit happens. That is the whole point of insurance, for w

Great, as a lawyer it's great to know that you're going to try and kill me for the actions taken by another lawyer who I don't know, have never met, and is handling a case that I would never take. You're also going to kill the lawyers who presumably tried to stop this from happening, the other side of the lawsuit.

The lawyers are not suing. The old women's family is suing. Blame yourself and the politicians you elect that make the laws that allow this. This is like saying we should kill all the mechanics because Lada's suck.

The kid was almost five. I've seen five year olds do, or attempt to do, some pretty destructive acts of mayhem *on purpose*.

No, you haven't. Not in the sense that you would do something 'on purpose'. They don't have the part of the brain that you would use to make such a decision. That's why we don't hold them accountable for those decisions in criminal courts.

NB: we actually didn't hold kids accountable before we knew they were actually lacking brain parts. We did so because we had already figured out that for whatever reason, kids didn't make the same decisions as adults given the same inputs. In the last 20 or so years, we have now come to understand WHY that is, i.e., the missing brain matter.

They don't have the part of the brain that you would use to make such a decision.

Whoa, no way.

Maybe you're referring to how the prefrontal cortex, region of executive control, is underdeveloped? And anyway, that just means that they have a hard time controlling themselves, not that they can't plan or perform evil.

They don't have the part of the brain that you would use to make such a decision.

Whoa, no way.

Maybe you're referring to how the prefrontal cortex, region of executive control, is underdeveloped? And anyway, that just means that they have a hard time controlling themselves, not that they can't plan or perform evil.

No, actually they really "can't plan" at that age:) Proper planning needs (beyond impulse control) a) a proper sense of time (usually developed at around 6 years) and b) proper reasoning (mostly developed at about 12-13, but isn't finished until the "kid" is about 18). And I would argue that doing evil needs a proper grasp of the concept of death, which usually develops at around 9.

The kid was almost five. I've seen five year olds do, or attempt to do, some pretty destructive acts of mayhem *on purpose*.

No, you haven't. Not in the sense that you would do something 'on purpose'.

Actually, yes, on purpose. Ten miles from my house, a 4 year old got angry with a babysitter because the babysitter wouldn't let him/her do something. The toddler went to the closet, opened it, grabbed an unloaded SHOTGUN, picked up the shells and LOADED IT, then proceeded to walk over to the babysitter and shoot him to death.

Actually, yes, on purpose. Ten miles from my house, a 4 year old got angry with a babysitter because the babysitter wouldn't let him/her do something. The toddler went to the closet, opened it, grabbed an unloaded SHOTGUN, picked up the shells and LOADED IT, then proceeded to walk over to the babysitter and shoot him to death.

Just curious... Are you referring to this incident [dispatch.com] that occurred in Jackson, Ohio? In that case, there were no fatalities. Just some minor pellet wounds for the babysitter and a bystander.

As for the child, he definitely showed that he had fairly advanced fine motor skills and was able to display excellent memory recall (either through learning by repetition or by watching adults). However, he wasn't able to distinguish between a real firearm and a toy gun, and probably didn't appreciate the difference (or consequences). He also didn't exhibit much planning ability. The whole thing was pretty spur-of-the-moment.

This is fairly normal development for kids in the four-year old range. It's right at that transitory area between two of Piaget's stages: pre-operational vs. concrete operations. At that age, kids are already physically able to do some fairly complex things, but are only beginning to understand the consequences of negative actions and concepts. I think most people have noticed that this is around the age when kids begin to actively lie, bully, cheat, etc. So, it's hard to say what his motive was, other than to express his disapproval with the babysitter.

(Note: I'm trying not to talk out of my ass. The above was written after consulting my spousal unit; she has an MA in clinical child psychology and works with developmentally-challenged kids.)

By the way, I'm not sure that I believe the incident went down exactly as reported. According to articles that I read on other news sites, there was a fairly large group of kids in the mobile home, ranging from infants up to late-teens. The alternative theory is that the teens were goofing around with the shotgun when it accidentally went off, then laying the blame on the four-year old.

They don't have the part of the brain that you would use to make such a decision.

I would certainly hope they don't have the part of my brain that I would use to make such decisions. After all, it's my fucking brain and they shouldn't be stealing part of my brain to use for themselves.

And to drill down a little bit from your statement, how could the kids have possibly known their actions would lead to the death of the elderly woman. (A) They don't understand death at that age and (B) they've probably been run into themselves, and while I'm sure they didn't like it, they eventually got up and played again. Even if they could reason to some degree, they just don't have the experience and perspective to understand the effect of their actions.

I don't like the litigious nature of so many people in the US, but the parent or guardian in charge of that four year old at least deserves to have their level of responsibility in the incident questioned, far more than the 4-year-old's.

That being said, if a broken hip was enough to kill the woman, I don't wish to sound disrespectful, but it's likely that something else would have taken her out in relatively short order as well. A running dog, a sudden noise, a slippery step, a moment of disorientation. It's sad that she died and I feel for her family, but while the accident was the precipitating event, one could reasonably assign blame to the passage of time.

Now, to play the devil's advocate, if I were a defense lawyer on this one, I would look into the woman's dietary and exercise history: if I could show that with better diet and exercise, other people her age would have reasonably been able to recover from such an accident, I could probably minimize or even remove my client's liability.

Actually, you could. the thin skull rule doesn't apply to a victim's negligence.

Because of the thin skull rule, they must accept that the consequence of the minimal bump was a broken hip even though that's a big injury for a small bump. However, if poor compliance with the doctor's orders made the difference between life and death, that's negligence on the victim's part.

You missed a biggie there. NO 4 year old is reasonable. They're simply not capable of it. It's somewhat interesting that you suggest a calculation of risk that they were (and still are) years away from being able to even perform the mechanics of. 4 year olds don't know how to add (other than perhaps a rote knowledge of a few single digit additions), much less multiply.

At that age, they might well tell you they were chased by a bear in their bedroom and actually believe it to be literally true. You expect them to somehow predict the likelihood of causing a serious injury to an elderly adult from a particular action? Worse, from a non-volitional accident made likely from a particular action?

As a side note, if we're going to allow adults to sue 6 year olds, doesn't basic fairness suggest we must allow 6 year olds to sue adults as well (perhaps even pro se)? I can just see a court proceeding where the jury is asked to determine if, in fact, Mr. Johnson is a doodie-head.

The kids were found in possession of 2 pounds of marijuana along with 10 syringes clearly meant for heavy drug usage. But more importantly, the test proved the a 0.5 BAC for alcohol in their blood. The police also found two semi automatic 12 gauge shotguns in the back of their bicycles.

This is ridiculous. She is obviously suing the child because it would be hard to show negligence on the part of the parent.

IANAL, but I find It interesting that the judge uses the term "a reasonable child", because the legal standard is "a reasonable person". In most jurisdictions, children under 6 - 7 have no duty of care - an obligation to act with reasonable care in acts that could foreseeably harm others. Above this age, until the age of majority, they are judged by the standard of a "reasonable person of like age, intelligence, experience and under like circumstances".

A judge who believes a 4 year old can reasonably foresee when her actions could foreseeable harm others is a judge who has never spent any time with a 4 year old. Maybe he has heard about them, or seen one in pictures?

To be held responsible, at a minimum, a person first has to be self aware - able to recognize themselves as an individual and to learn, self reflect and make choices. This generally doesn't develop in children until sometime around age 2, but is not fully developed until somewhat later. Welcome to the "terrible twoes". The process of learning how to behave as an individual in a society only BEGINS with self awareness. To make responsible personal choices, a person also requires cultural, spacial and temporal awareness. That is, they need to be able to recognize the values of their society, have a sense of their physical environment (distance, speed, relationships between objects, possibly a concept of property, etc.) and they need to be able to reflect on past events, observe the current and foresee/predict cause and effect at it pertains to the immediate future. Many 4 year olds if given a choice of ice cream right now, or going to Disneyland next week, are going to choose ice cream because next week might as well be 10 years.

It would be unconscionable (unreasonable) to ask a 4 year old to cross a busy street on her own. She lacks the ability to judge distance, time, speed, inertia, force, etc. as they pertains to her own safety. How could you possibly expect a 4 year old to make the same judgments in the context of another person's safety? And even if the girl made the careless choice to risk hitting the old lady, is she able to recognize the difference between running into a 12 year old, a tree, a moving car or an 87 year old lady? Each has different implications. A four year old is simply not capable of recognizing these implications and making reasonable choices.

However, traditionally in our court system young minors cannot have responsibility for their actions because they lack the cognitive capacity to understand the consequences of their actions. Their brains simply haven't developed enough, it's not a case of 'parents didn't teach them right', it's just plain-old physically impossible. Now I could understand holding the parents responsible: they should have ensured there was a safe play environment, but that doesn't seem to be what is happening here.

YOU would have responsibility because you are developmentally an adult. You are able to grasp cause and effect as well as right and wrong. You are old enough to understand that you can't just fix anything by walking out of frame for a moment like Wile E Coyote.

The 4 year old brain has not yet developed the part that anticipates the consequences of actions. While they're not entirely incapable of it, their capacity for it is considerably less than that of an adult.

I think if I had a kid and this happened to him/her, when the judge found the 6-year-old competent to stand trial, I would have told my kid to tell the judge that he/she wanted to serve as his/her own attorney, just to fully paint the trial as the mockery that it is. There's clearly a line of reasonableness here, and this clearly crosses it. Yes, it's sad that the elderly lady died. It was also an accident caused by a child.

Further, I find it difficult to believe that a child of that age could have been

>Is this the problem with the lawyers, or is this a problem with the judge?

It might be a form of protest. The judge has just brought it to a national spotlight that the law allows (and maybe requires) him to permit a suit to go forward against a six year old for a liability incurred at age four.The judge knows damn well it won't get past the first hearing, but instead of sweeping the real issue under the rug, he has made it so that it *cannot* be ignored.

I don't think this judge is insane or inhuman as he's been made out to be. I think this might have been a stroke of genius that will end up with the insane laws being changed.

Except this can't be the first hearing. This was decided by a justice of the New York Supreme Court, so this must have gone though a lower court or two first. There are at most two higher courts in the USA - the Federal appeals courts (don't know about this one) and the US Supreme Court.

No, wait. Someone set us right further down - the NY "Supreme Court" is misleadingly named; there's actually several NY supreme courts, which are first-line trial courts in that state. So this is just a low-level judge who made a wacky decision.

My understanding is that previous jurisprudence stated that a child under four could not be ruled accountable. This, however, did not say anything about the degree or nature or permissibility of such a ruling for ages four and above.

Previous rulings have held that there is a sliding scale of responsibility between 4 and, I believe, 12. At four a child is presumed to not be capable of fully understanding their actions so it is on the plaintiff to prove that this particular four year old did understand. A very tough task indeed. At 12, the burden is on the defense to prove that this particular child could not understand his/her actions.

The big decision in this case was that the parents cannot be sued. Now the plaintiff is going to have to prove that a four year old on her training wheeled bike, racing another child, was cognizant of the ramifications of her actions of riding on the sidewalk. Good luck with that.

Article 40 of the Convention of Children's Rights says:"Governments are required to set a minimum age below which children cannot be held criminally responsible and to provide minimum guarantees for the fairness and quick resolution of judicial or alternative proceedings."

When the article was written, I am pretty sure that the signers didn't envision that 'tis of thee would set that minimum age at *four*. That's just ridiculous. 14 is the common standard, as far as I can tell.

You must live in Louisiana. In English Common Law you follow precedent unless you can satisfactorily distinguish the instant case from prior cases. If you use your personal "judgment" to adjudicate that is judicial activism. Judicial review of incompetent legislation is usually handled by the Supreme Court of any state unless there is an egregious violation that the court needs to correct. Legislation is not at issue here so I'm not sure why you think the judge should have done this. Judicial assessment of a merit-less suit, I'll assume you mean failure to state a claim, is a job for the trial court. This was an interlocutory appeal to decide who could be sued. The judge could only decide that issue and could not, sua sponte, decide the case should go away.

Judges do judge, but they can only adjudicate very specific issues within a very strict rule set. They cannot do whatever they want. Judge's may decide only the issue that is before them. Dismissing the case was outside the scope of his authority.

Is that really the world you want to live in? Where parents keep their children on a 12 inch leash and act as a force field protecting their children from the universe, and the universe from their children? Because that produces kids who are by definition unresponsible, and by training co-dependent.

By the way, the mom was supervising the child. A fact that nobody had disputed until you.

It could still be medical malpractice. The reports dwell on the kid, and don't say much about the fact that the victim died a significant time after receiving medical care. I wonder if the judge is allowing the case to go forward so that more attention can be cast on other details.

Doubtful. An 87 year old who suffered a hip fracture has a 50-50 chance of dying in the next year no matter how good the medical care. Yep, we can fix hip fractures - but it's a big, big stress to the system and lots of people can't hack it.

What happened to accidents? It seems that everything in life needs to be controlled, somebody is accountable. There is no space for accidents, so somebody got to hang, that's when it comes to small girls. But when you talk about serious crimes like foreclosure fraud and the wall street fraud then they don't press charges because 'they might find the culprit'.

There is no space for accidents, so somebody got to hang, that's when it comes to small girls. But when you talk about serious crimes like foreclosure fraud and the wall street fraud then they don't press charges because 'they might find the culprit'.

It's very simple: there's one set of rules for the peasants and another set of rules for the aristocracy.

She can't be sent to prison, has no income to pay a fine, and I doubt very much she can be made to perform community service. So I'm just wondering.

Also, there's this:

Wooten also disagreed with the lawyer's assertion that Juliet Breitman should not be held responsible because her mother was supervising the children at the time."A parent's presence alone does not give a reasonable child carte blanche to engage in risky behavior such as running across a street," Wooten wrote. He added that "the term 'supervising' is too vague to hold meaning here."

But running around is what 4 year old children do. I think pretty much everybody has noticed that young children have some problems with fine motor control and are ocassionally running into people while playing. They're children, they haven't completely figured it yet. What are the parents supposed to do, keep them on a leash?

Children below age 8-9 don't even really get the sense of "right" and "wrong"

That all depends on if they were taught to have one or not.

The brain is a very plastic organ and while there are physical limits to how quickly it can develop the current conventional wisdom is nowhere near those limits.

In general, if a child is expected to behave responsibly and this expectation is backed up with both positive and negative reinforcement that child will become more responsible at an earlier age than a child that do

At this age, those teachings tend to be very concrete. "Don't play with matches." "Don't touch things on the stove." Being able to logically evaluate the consequences of a theoretical action in a situation with which a child is unfamiliar would be almost unheard of.

Shit like what? A lady died. I don't think it's completely insane for the family of the victim to want to be heard in court. They lost a loved one. The kid and the parents just have to appear and account for their actions. I know I'd be a bit fed up if I lost someone and it was quickly dismissed as being just something that happens. It's not like the courts are going to send the kid to prison, and I doubt there will be any significant financial penalty. Yes, people get absurd amounts of money for stu

Shit like what? A lady died. I don't think it's completely insane for the family of the victim to want to be heard in court. They lost a loved one. The kid and the parents just have to appear and account for their actions.

It was an accident. Accidents happen. If someone dies, that's awful, but it's still an accident. If you start to sue any child that somehow harmed someone else, parents would have to start leashing their kids as soon as they leave the house (and use a short leash). For some reason that's not the society I'd want to live in.

It makes for a disturbing headline, but logically I think it makes perfect sense.

If the goal of the legal system is to make as much money as possible out of it, then yes, it is a logical decision. Also, it's exactly what's wrong with the system.

I think it's completely insane for the family of the victim to want to be heard in court. In most countries this would be ruled as an accident, regrettable but nevertheless an accident between a small child not completely in control of their actions and an elderly person less aware and agile than a typical 40 year old. The media around the world is laughing at the USA right now, go and do an internet search to see the kind of reactions that are being published.

Do the majority of Americans believe a costly court case is the only way to find out all the facts and reach some resolution after such an unhappy accident? I think people are suprised in many countries that in the USA the resolution of a sad accident is not solved through the two families talking after a coroner has defined the facts, perhaps arbitrated by a counsellor, but that the victim's family is claiming that emotional laying to rest can only be achieved by sueing a pre-school child in court.

In most countries I think the police and legal authorities would rule that cause of death was an unfortunate coming together of circumstances, and probably there would be an opportunity for the victim's family to meet the child's parents. Child's parents would be terribly upset and offer sincere apologies, maybe ask the child to apologise, victim's family would probably be distraught but recognise that very sad accidents happen and accept apologies and understand that things happen that we can't control. Both families would probably agree that the small child was not an intentional murderer, not evil at heart, and agree that a small child shouldn't be traumatised or penalised for life for an accidental action so try to impress upon the child that you must be careful in what you do, but not load the kid with massive guilt complexes.

Meanwhile in the USA the victim's family wants to go to court and sue a pre-school child for millions.

Seems like you're moving back to a pre-20th century era when children were considered small adults with the same rights and responsibilities. Progress in science has proved that children are biologically as well as experientially unable to make the same level of decision making as adults and hence have to be treated differently. Their brains have not yet formed, they are simply not adults and cannot be considered accountable as an adult.

I'm Norwegian and recently spent 8 days in the US... During that time I had the chance to actually see how a tiny part of the US actually is.. (for a tourist anyway:p).

Security at the airport was a -hell- of a lot less time-consuming and annoying compared to the one in Amsterdam...

Going through customs and having my passport checked? Took less than a minute...
Me: "Yep, here for blizzcon and spending way too much money on stuff I dont really need *grin*"
Guy behind counter: "Oh, the gaming convention? Have fun, and dont forget to sleep!"

People in general? Friendly and didnt run into any idiots during my stay...

Cars: Fecking huge, and silly... Though comfortable they were!;)

Internet at hotel: Slow as dogshit... how they can legally call it broadband I dont understand.. 3-4kb/sec upstream is painful when you are uploading pictures at a meg a pop:p

Money?
Please for $deity's sake get rid of the myriad of coins.... Pennies?... really?.... pennies?
And stores dont accept large bills?... meh... I came over with ten 100 dollar bills and had to visit a bank to break it up into 10s and 20s to actually be able to spend it on anything... that is just silly... even the hotel couldnt split em...

I'm sleepy and cant remember anything else at the moment but overall it is a nice country to be in for the most part.Random stupidity that makes the news completely blanket out that for large parts of the world though. As most dont visit they base their view on the media coverage alone... which is mildly put unfortunate;)

We Europeans tend to forget that the US is massive. It's twice the size of the entire EU, though only has 3/5 of the population. Population wise it's comparible to the Eurozone countries.

The major difference is that the culture seems to be based around 'city states' more than 'countries' as it is in the Eurozone..... your average Texan is as close to someone from New York as a Finn is to a Greek.

I have tons of trouble convincing my friends out of country that the US isn't the one portrayed on television and there are very, very, distinct differences in culture even only a few hundred miles apart. Some parts of the country actively HATE other parts and where it not for our central government would have nothing to do with each other.

I'm out in California after much time in the East and would completely love it if California where to leave the union. Those americans are crazy!

First, this was a trial court ruling by a judge, not a justice. This did not create or modify precedent for other courts. In New York, unlike the rest of the US, the low-level trial courts are called Supreme Courts [wikipedia.org]. What the rest of us would think of as "The Supreme Court" is called the Court of Appeals [wikipedia.org]. Yes, it's very confusing.

Second, this was a ruling on a motion to dismiss, not a ruling on the merits. This only says the child may be sued, not that the child is liable, nor even that the child (as opposed to the parents) would be made to pay anything. The parents are being sued as well; this is not some spiteful attack on the child in particular.

Third, this is not surprising in the least from a legal perspective and relies upon well-settled legal principles. In general the law in the US does not recognize an absolute age limit to liability. For negligence, children are judged according to the standard of a reasonable child of that age (unless they are undertaking an adult activity such as driving a car). For a four year old, that's not saying much.

Yup, I checked the rules here in Norway. Age of criminal responsibility is 15, but for negligence:

1-1. (children's responsibility.)
Children and youth below 18 are liable for harm that they cause intentionally or negligently, as far as it seems reasonable taking their age, development, behavior, economic ability and other circumstances into consideration.

1-2. (parent's responsbility)
1. Parents are liable for harm caused by children and youth under 18, as far as they have not given proper care or in other ways not have done what is reasonable under the circumstances to avoid damage.
2. Regardless of own guilt parents are liable for harm caused intentionally or negligently by their children and youth under 18 that they live with and have care for, with up to 5000 NOK (850 USD) per incident.

There's no minimum age mentioned, now I think under no circumstances would anyone convict a four year old under 1-1, but if someone absolutely wanted to try it in court then there's no formal reason to dismiss it.

I find it hilarious that so many comments are all like, "ONLY IN AMERICA. OUR COUNTRY IS RETARDED, THIS IS WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE LEGAL SYSTEM, etc"

They are complaining about ignorance or perceived stupidity in society, only to be revealing their own lack of understanding of the situation. Of course I'm complaining about their own ignorance probably reveals my own. All this ignorance and complaining will probably create some sort of infinite loop or black hole where no sane discussion can escape. Ah slashdot.

It's not like the 6 year old girl has any money to cough up to pay damages. Why are they bothering with her anyway? Does including the child on the list of defendants make it easier for them to claim from the parents?

There are various ways in which a parent may be liable for the negligence of a child, but the child's negligence must first be proved. In order to prove the child's negligence, the child must be a party to the suit. The plaintiff can then seek damages from the parent.

Exactly, if 4 years olds are liable for potentially millions in medical bills if they hit some prehistoric old woman who should have died long ago anyway, then why can't I have sex with them? Her life would be fucked over either way, so what difference does it really make?

A mother in New York has successfully sued her newborn for failing to properly aligning himself for natural delivery, forcing a cesarean section. While compensatory damages are only $14,789, the woman is seeking $2,000,000 in putative damages for a future the humiliation at her spa and Bermuda resort. The baby has counter sued the mother for failing her lamaze class, seeking damages for in proper immunization from failure to emerge through the birth canal. More at 11..
Next, sperm sued for infertility!

Actually when I was 5 years old I was allowed to play outside unsupervised, as long as I didn't cross any major streets [google.com] and came back if my parents blew the whistle that they used for the purpose.

But it also means that the debt will be collecting interest for a long, long time before payments can start. If the parents aren't wealthy enough to pay up, the child may end up with a debt so large that it will be unable to pay it. Ever. Because it did something stupid at age 4.

Maybe, just maybe, you should specify which country you live in, not which continent.I live in Germany, and you can do fuck all to a 6 year old. A 6 year old could throw in your window and nobody, not the kid nor the parents would have to pay.

Lets just ignore that she's 89 years old and would've died soon, probably in the same way too as falling over is quite a common occurrence; only this time they have a finger to point for hospital fees, if it weren't the child it'd be the owner of a mall or the maker of her shoes etc.

So as far as my argument of socialized health care? Shit happens and people need medical treatment, it's a basic and universal need for *everybody* in the world.

live in Europe where (almost) everybody has insurance (civil resposibility) against such things, but only if the parents admit having done something wrong during the supervision of their kids.

If they did everything right and the kid does damages, the victim has to sue the kid.

In Germany, children up to 7 years are in principle not capable of being guilty of anything. So you can't sue them. (Maybe you can sue them, but the case would be very simple: Child under seven, you've lost). In road traffic, children under 10 are never at fault. Parents will be responsible if they were negligent. So if they are insured, and the damaged party was a friend or relative, they will tend to claim to have been negligent (and insurance pays). If they are not insured, they will tend to claim they h

This is a pretty standard ruling under American Tort law. In civil negligence cases, the standard for negligent acts performed by children is whether a reasonable child of the defendant's age, intelligence, and experiences would have exercised reasonable care in this situation. (This is, of course, more generous a standard than is applied to adults, where the standard is whether a reasonable person would have exercised reasonable care. This is to say that, for the child, the test is more subjective and is geared specifically to the intelligence and experience of the child in question.)

As to the point of all of this, the deceased woman's estate can make a civil negligence claim against the child for medical expenses (which may be quite high - I haven't the first idea as I'm not a doctor), lost income/life expectancy (which in this case will be very low), and funeral costs. The one thorny legal issue that will likely come up in this case is whether the death was proximately caused by the bike crash. If there were some intervening cause of the death, say if the deceased caught an infection while in the hospital and the infection killed her, that might reduce the defendant's liability. (On the other hand, it might not. It will depend on the facts of the case. I'm just highlighting legal issues here.) Other potential claims will depend on the facts of the case. If, for example, the deceased was walking with her family when the child on the bicycle struck her, those family members might have claims in their own right for physical or emotional harms they suffered.

Lastly, the issue of who will actually pay is very simple. This child is not going to pay herself. This child is not going to jail. Standard homeowner's insurance includes a general liability policy which covers damages in civil lawsuits. The fact that the suit was even brought in the first place indicates that the defendant's family almost certainly has such a policy because it would make no economic sense to sue absent them having one. (In civil suits, insurance money is very easy to get. As a plaintiff, you really don't want to have to deal with getting liens on property, garnishing wages or seizing bank accounts. One can do it, to be sure, but then you have to get into other considerations of what the state law will allow you to take, and you actually have to get your hands on the property/money to seize it. Often, if their isn't a ready supply of insurance money to go after, plaintiffs will elect not to sue.)

By the way, this is not news. This is a sad story that got picked up by some media outlet because most members of the media (to say nothing of most people in the United States) don't understand the common law of negligence that is applied in state courts.

It's a nice thought, but no, not all life has the same value. You want proof? Talk to a doctor about requirements for organ transplant recipients. Young before old, no druggies or drunks, no one with uncurable conditions, or even lasting illnesses. If all life was of equal value, then it'd simply be a matter of "who started needing the replacement first."

Then there's the legal system. Self-defence makes murder legal. Hmm. But if your life is worth the same as your would-be killer, you should be just as liable for his death as he would have been for yours.

I could go on, but it should be obvious by now that by any measure, different lives have different values.

"legal murder" is a mistatement of terms. Murder is premeditated illegal killing. Self-defense is usually not premeditated, and it's not illegal. I think the technical term for killing is homicide, and that doesn't assign guilt or assume planning. There are adjectives to describe the cause of the homicide.

Of course there is. It's implicit within your *reasonable* force. If an inocent life were as valuable as the one of a criminal within his criminal intent, then it would be no way you could apply reasonable force against the criminal in such a manner that the criminal ended up dead: the very fact the he died would be argument enough to probe you were beyond reasonable force.

Organ transplant triage is based on success rates, not the value of life. The young and those with no chemical dependencies or complicating conditions have a documented higher success rate. They can undergo the extremely traumatic procedures and will be more likely to have positive outcomes. This is, in fact, based ultimately on the fact that two lives *are* equal. Given the choice between a 70% chance of saving one life and a 40% chance of saving another, which is the more responsible choice of action? If, on the other hand, there were a surplus of suitable organs, then such procedures would be done to these less attractive patients. Triage is about preserving the most life, not selecting which is more valuable.

Self-defense is an accepted justification because it deters attacks. It means an attacker has to accept that by breaking another's right to safety, they themselves lose that same right. Again, this is equality in action, not a value judgement on life.

Yes, though a small child running into most people would be one of the minor annoyances that happens all of the time, results in a talking-to, and everyone moves on. In this case, the woman was unfortunately fragile enough that the result, which normally would be harmless, was actually deadly. Should the child, who clearly already doesn't know not to run into people, be held responsible at age 4 for not knowing that elderly people are incredibly fragile and get potentially fatal complications easily?

By the same token, should a frail 87 year old woman be allowed to roam the sidewalks without assistance? Should she be left to her own devices, unprotected from every risk -- tripping over uneven pavement; stepping off the curb and landing wrong; her own perhaps-failing vision that didn't warn her of an oncoming hazard, such as toddlers on bicycles??

Perhaps her family should be sued for letting her out on her own, without their aid and protection. Perhaps she should be sued for failing to get out of the way of an obvious hazard, such as uncoordinated toddlers on bicycles.

Or maybe we should recognise that unless everyone lives in a bubble, sometimes stupid accidents happen and people get hurt, and no one party is to blame.

So, if I hit a car that's so badly rusted the entire frame collapses, I'm liable to buy them a new car? No. I'm probably liable for the $300 replacement cost of a scrapyard rustbucket.

If it doesn't work this way with people, as well as cars, it should. I should not be liable for extreme bodily injury such as a fractured hip, if your osteoporosis is so bad that my actions would have caused a slight bruise for a healthy adult.

Doofus, it's her family who is suing: the lawyers are not suing on their own behalf!! The family is on the hook for legal bills, I'd guesstimate anywhere between $500k to $1M. Imagine you'd suddenly become liable for that amount of money. You'd sue everyone and their mother too, it's merely a matter of self-preservation. The alternative is to go bankrupt, like many do in the U.S. due to medical bills.

My conjecture: The lawsuit against the child gives him a way to compel testimony from the doctor who treated the woman, and is a discovery vehicle for the woman's medical records.They aren't going after the kid's assets. They are looking for an angle to go after the doctor who treated the woman, didn't do everything possible to save her life, and let her die.

All of the people commenting on this story are focusing on the kid, and the weirdness of suing a six year old. Very few seem to be thinking like a l